Letter from Michiana: Another problem with beautiful places

Something similar happens when it comes to talking about beautiful places. The more beautiful they are, the more impervious to memory they seem to be. Take Lake Michigan’s southern shore. At the beginning of the Twentieth Century, this was all duneland, a continuous stretch of grassy sands and woods running from the outskirts of Chicago up the eastern coast of Michigan. It was hilly and wild, considered “wasteland” by some. 

A major portion of it in Indiana was turned into one of the largest industrial sites in the world. This led to the development of cities and towns and a long fight to preserve what was left — what poet Carl Sandburg called “a signature of time and eternity.”

We can try to imagine what the pre-industrial dunes were like, what might have been had this rare and, as it turned out, ecologically extraordinary part of the continent been treated with a humbler hand. But what’s done is done. We’ll never really know the extent of what’s been lost, let alone what life might have been like had this area been permitted to evolve in a less aggressive way.

What’s amazing is how resilient natural beauty turns out to be. In spite of the abuses this place has absorbed over the years, it still retains a certain magic. We can thank the lake for that. Its sheer immensity has provided cover for countless sins. But we see it, too, in smaller samples. Over the hill from where I live is Moon Valley, a 50-some-acre swatch of woods, oak savanna, prairie and marsh that was once a sand mine.

Seeing life come back like this can be inspiring, but it’s not without a smoky aftertaste. It’s too forgiving. The other day M and I walked the beach and it was hard not to notice the ways people had messed things up. Piles of impossibly large boulders, stacked by homeowners when the lake was higher, made certain sections look like a construction site. But in the past couple of years, the lake has receded, making more beach available. Kayaks, paddleboards, jet skis and a fantastic glut of colorful flotation toys were strewn about in places like passed-out partygoers on what the state has deemed public property.   

It wasn’t always this way. But then, most beachfront houses didn’t use to be this big, the lake wasn’t this high, and there weren’t as many ways to cavort on the water. The thing is: anyone coming upon this scene for the first time would not have been wrong to think it looked like a great place to be. Telling them otherwise would sound like sour grapes. 

That’s the thing about beautiful places. They have a way of effacing their losses so that each succeeding generation finds them beautiful no matter what came before. It can go on like this for years and years, with every year seeming like it’s the first as far as newcomers are concerned, a new discovery. They can’t remember the way things were. Those of us who do, tell our stories and hope they’re still worth believing. 

David Hoppe’s new book, Letters from Michiana, is available on Amazon. Order your copy here: https://www.amazon.com/Letters-Michiana-Reflections-Michigans-southern/dp/B0B5KK2TRB